


Flashover (n.)

by peterpan_in_neverland



Series: have you ever felt things beyond the human language? [3]
Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Begging, F/M, Like, Vaginal Fingering, also the ending is completely unhinged, anyway, but probably not, i cannot express to you how LITTLE plot there is, i genuinely cannot believe that im posting this, i just snapped okay, im GENUINELY the worst, im sorry yall, its just words floating in jelly, its plotless, its words. thats it, legit tags time:, like the fic ends in the middle of it because i couldnt think of any other way to end it, maybe ill have an idea like fifteen years from now and change it, theres no plot, this is BARELY a flower shop/tattoo parlour AU, very brief vaginal sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24934606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterpan_in_neverland/pseuds/peterpan_in_neverland
Summary: She is holding three dark red dahlias (they are the colour of blood, Gilbert knows, because he is in college to be a doctor, and they stand out stark against the pale, unburnt skin of her hands) when she turns around, and Gilbert drops his eyes to the dozens of knuckle sized loops of wire he has made without really realizing it. He slides them off of his finger, wincing as the tightness of the wire pinches his skin.She sets the flowers on the counter carefully, her fingers hovering in the space around them, like she wants to guard them, wants to protect every petal from the possibility of being crushed. It makes him think of the way that Mary waits, still, after putting Delphine down for a nap. She always freezes, letting her hands hang in the air halfway between herself and Delphines crib, waiting for the chance that her baby will reach out for her or startle awake and cry.Gilbert is glad, momentarily, that there are people who care for flowers like that. Like they are more than blooms of colour, like there are uniquely cherishable aspects to each one that is not present in the next. He can see that type of caring in her.-OR; Gilbert runs a flowershop that Anne visits once a week
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, mentions of Ruby Gillis/Moody Spurgeon
Series: have you ever felt things beyond the human language? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778254
Comments: 4
Kudos: 104





	Flashover (n.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flashlightinacave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashlightinacave/gifts).



> i just... genuinely cannot believe that i both wrote and posted this. i've become completely unhinged.
> 
> anyway i love my friends (maggie, bhargavi, and leila, you all keep me alive) thank you all so much for like. not calling me insane when you should have.

The first time he meets the new owner of the shop next door to his, Gilbert thinks she has been dipped in pink paint. It shocks him briefly, and he looks her up and down, before realizing she’s sunburnt, a shade of red that contrasts starkly against the white of her neck— she must have had it covered, somehow.

She is red-headed and gangly and something reminiscent of background characters in the grainy eighties movies that Bash loves, with a bandana tied around her head and denim overalls that are practically shredded, freckles occupying the spaces in between the pink of her sunburn. Toronto has been cloudy— the kind of clouds that are thick and grey, hanging low in the sky, threatening rain— and he is completely and instantly naggingly curious about how she got sunburnt in the gloomy weather.

He stares at her the entire time she is in the shop. She looks at vases, dragging her fingertips along the rims, lifting and blowing into the ones that are thin necked, to hear the note it plays. She smells flowers and rubs the petals in between her fingers, picking up the ones that have fallen onto the floor and tucking them into her pockets. And Gilbert’s eyes follow her. He feels horribly, ridiculously creepy, in the kind of way that only people who stare at strangers can be, and the rational part of him is begging for him to stop. 

The irrational part, however, wants him to keep looking. He is a people watcher. He enjoys studying people that come into his shop, spinning up lives for them, backstories and character development. The answers to questions he will never ask them, sitting on a stool behind the counter, twisting pieces of dark green florists wire around, around, around his knuckles.

He thinks of a world where this girl— Emma, he decides— has moved here from California. She is leaving a college she did not enjoy, with a major did not like and a dorm she did not care for. She is rebelling against her parents, who are wealthy, by wearing ripped clothes and shaving the bottom two inches of her hair, getting a tattoo along her collarbone in words Gilbert cannot quite make out. She has decided that Canada is as far away from her parents as she can get, and in a way, she is probably right. This place— not just the flower shop, the entire corner of Toronto where they live— feels like an entirely separate piece of the world. Something different and safe and rare.

She is holding three dark red dahlias (they are the colour of blood, Gilbert knows, because he is in college to be a doctor, and they stand out stark against the pale, unburnt skin of her hands) when she turns around, and Gilbert drops his eyes to the dozens of knuckle sized loops of wire he has made without really realizing it. He slides them off of his finger, wincing as the tightness of the wire pinches his skin.

She sets the flowers on the counter carefully, her fingers hovering in the space around them, like she wants to guard them, wants to protect every petal from the possibility of being crushed. It makes him think of the way that Mary waits, still, after putting Delphine down for a nap. She always freezes, letting her hands hang in the air halfway between herself and Delphines crib, waiting for the chance that her baby will reach out for her or startle awake and cry. 

Gilbert is glad, momentarily, that there are people who care for flowers like that. Like they are more than blooms of colour, like there are uniquely cherishable aspects to each one that is not present in the next. He can see that type of caring in her.

“How much are they?” she asks, eyes dancing between the small bouquet and Gilbert’s face. Her eyes are a truly confusing medium between blue and grey, like the colour of icebergs in wintergreen gum commercials. He wants to drown in them, explore them, collect and name the feeling that her gaze sends into his stomach and up his spine, to keep forever.

“Is this your first time here?” Gilbert asks, and she eyes him suspiciously. One of her eyebrows shoot up. He likes that.

“Yes,” she answers it like a question, her eyebrow still raised. 

“Can you prove it?” 

“Can you prove I can’t?” It is his turn now to raise his eyebrows. He presses the toe of his shoe to the floor and tilts back on his stool, until all of his weight is balanced on a single leg. He tries to make himself look suave, more smooth than he actually is, and he tilts his chin up until he is looking at her down the slope of his nose like it is the barrel of a gun.

“I cannot.” 

“Then, yes.” She taps her nails against the counter, then smiles, letting out an airy laugh that sounds like the first notes of windchimes, the kind that wakes you up early in the morning. It shoots through him and makes his head feel clearer. “It actually is, anyway. I’m new to Toronto.” The revelation sends a thrill through him— she could be from California, could be running from her parents, from an unsatisfactory life.

“Your first purchase is free, then.” He wraps the flowers in a thin, translucent brown parchment paper, tying a bow around them with a length of thick hemp cord. He hands them to her carefully, his fingers brushing against hers as she takes the bouquet. She holds it in the crook of her arm, and drops two dollars into his tip jar. She had held the money with her pinkie finger and thumb, and Gilbert finds it uniquely charming. A conscious choice.

“My name is Anne,” she says, and walks out. He lets the stool drop back onto all three of its legs, and moves to sweep off the counter before the next customer comes in. 

He falters, catching sight of a few blood red flower petals dusted over the white tile of the counter. He picks them up, carefully, with his pinkie finger and thumb, just to see what it is like, then drops them into a brown paper bag. He folds the top down four times and sticks a bobby pin on it, to keep it closed. He pushes into the back of a shelf in the storage closet, somewhere Bash won’t find it.

_ Anne.  _

Her name is Anne.

-

“Blythe, I got  _ news _ ,” Bash says, pushing the door to the flower shop open. The bell jingles, and Delphine squeals with delight at the noise. 

“Again!” she shouts, clapping her hands together. Delphine is two in June, and learning to talk, albeit slower than most kids her age. Gilbert knows Bash worries about it, but between him and Mary, he hopes it is enough to quell his fears. 

“Not right now,  _ doux-doux.”  _ Bash hands her over the counter to Gilbert, who sets her down on the ground with her Lincoln Logs, while Bash surveys the shop, picking out flowers that have dried out or started to die, clipping off leaves that have browned. He tosses them into a bag that will then be emptied into the compost pile that is used for Mary’s garden.

“What’s your news, Bash?” 

“That shop next door that’s been empty since before  _ you _ were born,” Bash grabs a dandelion— truthfully, Gilbert isn’t sure  _ why  _ they have a stock of dandelions, considering they are weeds, but he has long since let it go— and tosses it to Gilbert. He gives it to Delphine, who starts to pull the petals out, dropping them onto the floor. “Well, there’s a new owner.” 

“Really?” Frankly, Gilbert is surprised. Their small corner of Toronto has been exactly the same as long as Gilbert has been in town. It has always felt old— colonial, almost, like the town in Gilmore Girls— with a bookstore, a record shop, and a gigantic building filled floor to ceiling with antiques. There are, of course, more menial and everyday buildings— like a grocery store and a nice clothing boutique— but there is something about the smaller stores, with stock that arrives second hand, that Gilbert’s finds deeply intoxicating.

“She’s an interesting thing, the owner.” Gilbert loves the way Bash talks. His tone is always lightly sarcastic, sometimes something directly next door to wistful, and his accent coupled with the up-and-down cadence to his voice always makes Gilbert feel soft and floaty. Sometimes, he swears he can hear the stars coming out to listen to Bash talk. 

“How so?” Gilbert asks, before leaning down to pull a Lincoln Log from Delphines mouth. There are slobbery teeth marks on it, and he makes a face before setting it aside. 

“She’s just…  _ odd _ . Talks to herself, I guess,” Bash tells him, “I heard it from old Mrs Lynde, so I can't speak to the truth of it.” 

“Rachel doesn’t care for new people,” Gilbert says, because it is true. Mrs Lynde got crabby after her youngest child moved out, and she reflects it in her gossipy and prickly nature. On days when she is softer, more relaxed, she is as sweet as strawberries in the summertime, and so Gilbert can’t bear to condemn her. “Anything else?”

“Her place is going to be a tattoo parlor.” Gilbert coughs, choking on nothing, and Bash claps him on the back until his throat clears. “There’s a sign up outside of it and everything.” 

Gilbert tries to think of something to say, or to ask. He really does, because the silence between him and Bash is almost upsetting. A  _ tattoo  _ parlor, here, seems absurd. The new owner, whoever she is, is going to have an astounding lack of business. 

“Does the sign look good, at least?” Gilbert asks, to clear the static. 

“It looks real nice, Blythe.” Bash nods, the smile that Gilbert knows is a precept to some kind of joke or insult lacing onto Bash’s face. It is impossible for him to hate that smile. “You finally going to get that tramp stamp you’ve been talking about?” 

“Yeah, and it’s gonna be of  _ your  _ face, Sebastian.” 

Bash puts a hand on his chest, over his heart, and sighs, “I’m honoured, Blythe, really, I am.” 

“I’m sure you are,” Gilbert says, and toys with some of the tools behind the counter, moving and reorganizing them. “Did Rachel say what her name is?” 

“ _ A _ -something, I wasn’t quite listening after a while,” Bash says, and squints his eyes, tipping his head up toward the ceiling, a gesture that Gilbert knows means he is thinking, “Anna, maybe?” 

“Anne?” Gilbert says— shouts, really— all too quickly for it to be normal. Bash turns to him and smiles, his whole face lifting up with it. 

“That’s it,” Bash says, then points at Gilbert, shaking his finger up and down, “why do you sound like you’re happy to know that, Blythe?” 

“She came in the other day,” Gilbert decides to tell him, skirting around the details, the interest he had taken in her. “Got some flowers.” 

“Generally what you do at a florists,” Bash says, and Gilbert rolls his eyes. He puts his hands flat on the counter and pulls himself up on top of it, swinging his legs around and standing up straight to face Bash. 

“Shut up,” Gilbert says, lightly, briefly pointing his finger in Bash’s face. He drops his hand before Bash can smack it away. 

“I know where you’re goin’, Blythe.” 

“No, you don’t!” Gilbert says, even though he knows that Bash is right. Will probably always be right, no matter how many aces Gilbert thinks he has up his sleeves.

“Give my regards to our new neighbour.” Bash walks around the counter, picking Delphine up from the ground and tickling a finger under her chin. “Make sure she knows that  _ I’m _ the charming one.” 

Gilbert snorts, and pushes the door open, turning ninety degrees. He walks until he is in front of the door. There is already a red decal on the glass of the door, that reads  _ Inkstain Tattoo & Piercing.  _

The walls are white, with paint chips pinned onto them sporadically, and some sample colours painted in squares on each wall. There’s an orange couch, exactly the colour of fire, pushed up against one wall, with a number of shiny binders stacked haphazardly on the cushions. 

“Flower shop boy!” A voice calls, and Gilbert spins on his heel, turning towards the sound. 

Anne is standing in a doorway, two cans of paint in each hand and a smudge of baby pink on her forehead, standing stark against the red of her sunburn and the orange of her hair. It’s obvious she has been painting something, even aside from the dash of it on her forehead, because the denim of her pants are caked in a multicoloured conglomerate of paints on the knees. Gilbert hopes, strangely, that it does not wash out, because something about the stains look like they were made to suit her. 

“It’s Gilbert,” he says, and she tilts her head up, dropping the paint cans on the ground. They clatter, falling over and rolling into one another, making harsh metallic sounds that grind against Gilbert’s ears. 

“Quite a name,” she says, stripping off the purple latex gloves she is wearing and dropping them on a wooden desk. “We’re not open.” 

“But your door was unlocked.” 

“Technically, no,” she corrects, walking up to the counter that separates him from the rest of the space, and leans against it, her weight on her forearms, “the lock is  _ broken.”  _

“What a clear and important distinction,” he counters, and hopes that she does not want him arrested for breaking and entering. He knows it is a possibility— albeit a steep one— and something about the lilt in her voice and the beautiful unnameable colour of her eyes makes Gilbert believe that she is capable of anything. 

“Why are you here, Gilbert?” 

“Bash said you’re the owner.” 

_ “Bash?”  _ Anne repeats, raising her eyebrows and pushing her head forward, a gesture that Gilbert thinks means  _ what did you just say?  _

“Short for Sebastian,” Gilbert explains. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, because they are shaking, just a little bit, and he isn't sure of why. “He co-owns the flower shop with me. Told me to tell you hello.”

“Tell him hello in return,” Anne says, and swiftly, all in one motion, pushes her body over the counter, clearing it smoothly and landing neatly on her feet. She is standing in front of him now, and it gives him a strange sort of pleasure to see that she has to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “Now, get out.” 

Her words hit him like punches, and his brain fills with fog. “What?” 

“We have stuff to do in here,” Anne says, and turns around. 

Gilbert does not know why he does it; he thinks that it is purely adrenaline, the kind of knee jerk reaction that makes people hit someone that has scared them. But there is no reason for him to have reacted this way— his hand darts out, and he misses her arm by a millimeter, and instead, he hand grabs one of her braids, and he pulls. He hears himself call her  _ carrots _ . He hates it. 

Anne gasps, and grabs one of the binders from the couch. She turns around, swinging it with all the strength in her body, with the momentum coming up from her feet as she whirls to face him, and the shiny plastic of the binder connects with the side of his face. 

Gilbert puts a hand to his cheek— he barely felt the hit, if he is being honest, something eerily similar to adrenaline running through his veins, and his skin feels hot under his fingers. Anne is breathing hard, dragging oxygen in through her mouth, like her lungs are burning a fire that she must feed to stay alive. 

“Get the  _ fuck  _ out,” she says, throwing the binder aside, eyes on his. She looks at him like she feels defiant, like she is challenging him, and he wonders what she sees behind his eyes that makes her feel that he is something to be fought against. 

He nods, dropping his hand. He knows that the side of his face has bloomed red, blood rushing to the surface of his skin, because he can feel his pulse in his cheek. Anne’s eyes get wider, for a fraction of a second, but they return back to their usual size quickly. 

Gilbert walks out, tucking his hands into his pockets and trying not to look as though he has been hit. He deserved it, anyway

Bash laughs at him when he walks back into the flower shop, looking sheepish. “What’d she do to you, Blythe?” he asks, eyebrows raised. Delphine, even, is watching him for his answer. 

Gilbert leans forward and covers Delphines ears with his hands. “She hit me in the face with a binder, and told me to get the fuck out,” he tells Bash, who lets out a laugh, from deep within his chest. Gilbert rolls his eyes, feeling a blush creep into his cheeks.  _ At least _ , he thinks,  _ it will even things out _ . 

“What’d you do to make her so upset?” 

Gilbert rubs a hand against his neck, digs his fingers into his shirt collar. “I don’t know  _ why  _ I did it, Bash—” 

“God, you kissed her!” 

“No,” Gilbert says, fast, eyes wide, “I pulled her hair. And… called her “carrots,” y’know, like a moron.” 

Bash looks at him seriously, sweeping his eyes up and down Gilbert’s frame. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you.” 

“I know.” 

“Because I would have.” 

“I  _ know.”  _

“In a heartbeat, Blythe,” Bash says, snapping his fingers, “you pull my hair, it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.” 

“Shut  _ up, _ Bash.” 

-

“I hit him,” Anne says, turning into the living room. She had bounded up the stairs, two at a time, and her heart is racing. Her fingertips are tingling, every inch of her skin alight and hypersensitive. 

“Hit who?” Cole asks, pushing the chair he’s sitting in around to face her with one foot. 

“The guy that owns the flower shop next to us!” Anne yells. It is like there is a sudden, visceral sense of panics boiling into her blood and latching onto her tendons, making her joints stiff and skin hot. “Oh my  _ God,  _ that was so  _ stupid.”  _

“Why did you hit him?” Ruby asks, sitting on top of the kitchen counter, eating out of a bag of white cheddar popcorn. 

“He pulled my hair, and it was just, like, a crazy reaction—”

“He deserved it!” Ruby and Cole shout, at the same time, Ruby through a mouthful of popcorn. 

Anne makes a face, her eyebrows pushing together and her nose wrinkling— she wears glasses when she isn’t working, and they push up against her cheeks— and says, “you really think that? Because, truthfully, I’m worried he may  _ sue _ me.”

“I’ll just have Moody represent you,” Ruby says, and shrugs. 

Ruby is sweet— the sugary, melting popsicle in the summertime kind of sweet— with long blonde hair and a mess of freckles over her cheeks. She wears a nose ring, a gold stud, in the shape of a bumblebee, and she dresses almost exclusively in varying shades of pink. She is wicked smart, and keeps the books for the tattoo parlour, as well as managing the desk. Moody is her boyfriend— a lawyer, and a good one— who is interning at a law firm forty minutes away from their tattoo parlour, and the apartment above it that they live in. 

“I can’t afford Moody,” Anne jokes, despite knowing that he would represent her for free, in a heartbeat. 

“You would be a hard client to represent,” Cole interjects. He does not look up from his sketch— he never does— and Anne mocks offense. 

“I would be a delight as a client.” 

“There’s a reason you were kicked out of debate, Anne,” Cole argues, and she knows that he is correct.

“Oh, Cole, Ruby,” Anne says, sinking into the chair opposite Cole and setting her forehead flat on the table. “What ever shall I do?” 

“Stop talking like Elizabeth Bennett, for starters,” Cole says, in his deliberate, measured tone. It reminds Anne of the metronome Marilla would set on top of the piano, ticking back and forth on tempo. Cole and his voice are like that: steady, reliable, something unshakeable. 

“Yes,  _ please,  _ stop,” Ruby adds, hopping down from the counter and tossing the bag of popcorn behind her. It makes a deflated  _ crunch  _ sound as it collides with the wall. Anne wonders, faintly, if that is the sound her heart made as Gilbert tugged on her hair.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Anne points out. She lifts her head up, propping her chin on the back of her hands and looking across the table at Cole. 

“Honestly,” Cole says, and finally lifts his head up from his drawing. There is a plan behind his eyes. “You have two options, Anne.” 

“Only two?” she repeats, turning down her lips. 

“I don’t see the world through your eyes, maybe you’ll think of more,” Cole says, and shrugs. He runs his finger along the length of his palm, smearing the charcoal that has brushed onto his hands. “The way I view it, you can either avoid him—” 

“Boring,” Anne interjects. 

“Or you can go out of your way to  _ not  _ avoid him.” 

“Risky,” Ruby says, and drops her hand on top of Anne’s head, scratching her fingertips against her scalp. 

There is something about Ruby that Anne finds deeply soothing. 

It is, possibly, because her and Ruby are polar opposites. Ruby is water smoothed edges, the softness of poetry and the richness of dark chocolate. Anne, personally, thinks of herself as a cliff side, something dangerous and alluring, like monarch butterflies or fluorescent blue frogs. 

Ruby is in the middle of undoing one of Anne’s braids when she says, “it would be a powermove, Anne, making eye contact with him everyday.” 

Anne hums, and hopes that Cole and Ruby can understand everything that she is thinking behind it. 

Tomorrow, she puts on a t-shirt that Josie bought her, with a bundle of carrots prominently featured, and ties her hair in braids. She buys three dark red dahlias, and does not stop looking at Gilbert, the entire time.

-

Gilbert is laced with gunpowder, and Anne is holding a box of matches.

The worst part, the part that drags through his mind like an anchor dragging along the seafloor, is that he can not pinpoint if she is doing it deliberately. 

He will be almost certain she is, balancing on the precipice of one hundred percent certainty, and then she will do something to change his mind. It sets him on edge, and makes me feel as though his bones are melting together, his joints fusing until he is frozen in some statuesque pose on his stool behind the counter, florists wire around his knuckles.

“Anne,” Gilbert says, one day, as he watches her browse. They both know that she will come to the counter with her dahlias— she buys nothing else, ever, not any other type of flower, or the kiln fired vases that Mary makes. 

“Gilbert,” she says back. She leans in and smells a tulip, and Gilbert watches her wrinkle her nose. Dahlias don’t smell like anything, but tulips are strong— spicy, almost. 

“Why do you only ever buy dahlias?” he asks, before he can stop himself. She spends more time inside the shop than anyone else. She browses, looks. But she always—  _ always— _ walks out of the shop with three red dahlias. 

“Ruby likes them, and Cole likes to sketch them,” she says, and shrugs. She has not looked at him yet, and he cannot discern if he craves her eyes or fears them. 

“Who?” 

“My roommates— I grew up with them, after I got adopted.” 

“I’ve never met them,” Gilbert says. 

“Cole keeps to himself, and Ruby… well, I’m surprised Ruby hasn’t shown up, yet. She likes flowers, sunny places—” 

“What about you?” Gilbert asks, blatantly crossing whatever line they have drawn, cutting their routine, their tightrope walk, in two pieces, and he knows that, like a wishbone, Anne holds the bigger piece. 

“What about me?” she echoes. 

“Why do you come here?” 

She dips her fingers into a bright pink stargazer lily, and rubs the pollen over her cheekbones. “It reminds me of home.” 

-

Something changes in September. 

Anne gets sharper, polished, like the obsidian knives of Mesoamerica. She snaps at him and does not browse, she buys her flowers and sets them on the counter and catches his eyes, once, fast. Looks away. Leaves with her bouquet in her arms and a very specific type of pride on her shoulders.

It drives him crazy. 

He begins a repetition of a bad decision committed months earlier and the pushes open the door to her shop. The walls are painted now, grey, the farthest wall dark red, with gauzy black curtains hanging over the windows.

Anne turns out of an empty doorway, and freezes in place. She flushes red. She’s beautiful, and this— watching thick anger simmer in her eyes— makes him feel like he is breathing in electricity.

“Why the hell are you here, Gilbert?” Anne asks, walks to lean against the counter, and he feels anger blossom into his skin. The venom in her voice, like she is spitting poison, makes his bones feel the type of anger that is only present when he is fighting with someone he has even a measure of feelings for. 

He doesn’t like Anne. He does not, because he doesn’t know Anne. Anne is an enigma wrapped in mysteries to him, and the odds of knowing the answers to the questions that inevitably come to the surface of his mind whenever she comes to buy her dahlias is unlikely. They will be permanently unanswered. He cannot have feelings for Anne, because having feelings for Anne is like loving a movie you have never seen; a judgement made too early, an investment in shaky stock, and, for years, he has not been a risk taker.

He knows that he needs a reason, a reason for being here, and then his eyes catch a thick packed binder— tattoo stencils, probably— and he thinks it is a sign. “I came to apologize,” he says, measured, cold anger bleeding into his words like his vocal chords have been permanently tied to his heart, “but I don’t think you  _ care,  _ Anne.” 

“I don’t.” She does it again, that swift and smooth movement, pushing her entire body over the counter. She moves so fluidly, something akin to gymnastics or ballet, like she is in tune with the finer parts of her body, the things in charge of grace and stillness, that separate dancers from wrestlers. “But I deserve an apology.” 

There is cockiness, a deep seated arrogance in her words, the kind that holds weight, and Gilbert scoffs. “No,” he says, feeling bold, “you don’t.” 

“If you feel that way.” She shrugs, and it makes her hair— it’s tumbling down her shoulders, cascading in a long red wave that brushes her waist like a waterfall against rocks, and Gilbert wants to touch it, touch her  _ so  _ bad— move, catching the slivers of light creeping in between the curtains and reflecting it, bright red. “Then leave. I don’t want your half-baked, meaningless apology.” 

Anne turns around, and Gilbert moves, the type of action that starts on the soles of his feet and moves through his body, over his skin and in between his muscles, filling up the hollow of his bones. 

He catches her wrist and pulls her around to face him. She stumbles— he has never seen her stumble, ever, she has never lost her footing— but she catches herself, does it so quickly that Gilbert thinks he has imagined her trip up. She is pressed against him, so closely, heat from her skin pushes through the material of their clothing and melts into his skin. 

He leans down, and presses a kiss to her mouth that feels like fire, flames, every part of him burning, catching and spreading like brush doused in gasoline, and he never wants it to stop. 

Anne makes a soft, whimpering noise against his mouth and pulls her wrist from his grip, reaches up and laces her fingers into his hair. She tugs, and it sends a thrill through him, groaning into her mouth.

“How’s it feel?” she asks, pulling away half a fraction, her lips brushing against his as she speaks. 

“Do it again,” he whispers, like a confession to a priest, and feels the rush of air when she sucks a breath in. His skin erupts in goosebumps like flowers blooming, pushing up from the earth.

“Are you kidding?” 

“No,” he tells her, “serious as a heart attack.” 

She makes a fluttery sighing noise, the speed of hummingbird wings, and pulls his hair,  _ hard _ . It should not feel the way it does; it is good, so good, and it makes charcoal heated pleasure shoot down his body. 

“I hate that you like that,” Anne says, but Gilbert knows that she is lying by the way she leans down, pressing a kiss to his pulse point.

“I can tell.” 

She tugs on his hair again, scraping her nails over his scalp and down his neck, and it pushes a fire into him, a heat that runs from his skin straight through to his heart, igniting his entire body. 

He lifts Anne up— it’s easy, so easy, pulling her up into his arms— and she makes a noise of shock, deep in her chest, that ripples up and out into the air like freed doves. She wraps her legs around his waist, her thighs fitting snug into his hip bones, and he walks forward until the front of his thighs hit the counter. 

“What are you doing?” Anne asks, voice husky. Her mouth is still open, like she has a question to ask or comment to make, but whatever words she has spun up die on her lips when Gilbert kisses her. It is all heat— everything with Anne, everything about her, is fiery, like she starts fires in the places her feet land, and her lips are no exception— and he feels bold, pulling her shirt out from where it is tucked into her jeans, and sliding his hands up her back. 

Her skin is pebbled, erupted with goosebumps, and the feeling of them against the sensitive skin of his fingers is intoxicating. He tries not to get lost in it, in how good kissing her and touching her feels, because he has a plan— of course he does, he always does— but the pleasure laced groan Anne lets out when he bites on her bottom lip nearly makes him forget. 

He undoes the clasp of her bra, letting it hang from her shoulders, before pulling away from her, pushing her shirt up and over her head. He throws it, blindly, and cups her jaw with his hands. She fits so neatly, so perfectly into his palms and the thought of it scares him.

He kisses her lips, once— it’s barely a kiss, more a desperate and heated brush of his lips against hers— and trails his mouth across her jawline, her throat, and stops, just at her collarbone. There is a cluster of freckles, pushed together, under her left clavicle, and Gilbert kisses it, sucking at her skin until he knows,  _ knows,  _ it will bloom purple and dark, like violets. 

Then, he steps away from her. And it nearly kills him.

Her feet smack into the wood of the cabinet when he pushes her away. He had tried to do it carefully, but, God, she had been digging her heels into his thighs, and he hadn’t even noticed. She is looking at him, half betrayed, her bra still hanging from her shoulders. 

“I suppose,” he says, measured, but feels that he has been betrayed by his own body when his voice comes out choked, “that you don’t need an apology.” 

Her nostrils flare, and for a moment, Gilbert thinks that she is going to lunge forward and hit him, strangle him, and he feels like he deserves it. Instead, though, she pushes her bra back up, reaching around behind her back to clasp it. “I don’t,” she says. Her voice is impossibly smooth, like nothing happened, he had not even touched her, and it ignites something hauntingly angry in his stomach. 

“Why not?” he asks, and hopes that the desperation he feels does not leak out into his words. 

“I already told you, I don’t want half an apology.” She has gotten down from the counter— it was graceful, of course it was, how she landed solidly on her feet, a complete lack of trembling in her legs— and is looking around. “Where did you throw my shirt, you asshole?” 

“Are you serious?” Gilbert asks, before he can stop himself, and this— this is so unlike him, so out of character, a direct contradiction to the version of him that sits, silently, behind the counter and wraps flowers in cellophane. 

“Yeah, I didn’t see where it went, and—” he is quick, quiet, something like a shadow, when he slips past Anne, grabbing her arms so she will look at him. The challenge is back, that defiant look, the kind of spark in her eye that makes Gilbert want to take risks.

“I was trying to piss you off, you know that, right?” he asks, because he feels halfway insane. It is almost inhuman, her ability to embrace the theology of  _ nothing ever happened  _ like it is true. 

“Yeah,” she says, a little breathless. It is gratifying. “But, you didn’t— piss me off, I mean.” 

He knows the way he is looking at her; it is the same way Bash looked at Mary the day he met her, staggering drunk and uneasy on his feet, but with something obvious, something visceral and real and raw, like she held answers to questions he had not yet thought of, and Gilbert knows that that is the way he is looking at Anne. 

He decides to take some measure of control over the situation, ducking his head, pressing his lips to her skin. “Then I’m going to try a different strategy.” 

“A different strategy?” Anne asks, and for all she tries to have the air of ineffect, her voice betrays her, shaking willowy. 

“I get pissed off,” he says, and hears a gentle gasp crawl from Anne’s throat, hovering in the air. He nips at her pulse point, sucking her skin in between his teeth, to prove his point. “Does that work for you?” 

“What’ll you do?” she asks, and her question sends a thrill through him, lighting sparks in his vertebrae and setting him on edge. 

-

He moves, pressing her against the wall, and it forces the air from her lungs and the resolve out of her bones, and she breaks, lacing her fingers into his hair, pushing her hips up into his. His mouth is running along the column of her throat, scraping his teeth along her pulse point, and when he moves to nip at her earlobe, the pleasure shoots through her bones. 

Anne is a risk taker. 

What is it that Cole calls her? An adrenaline junkie? Whatever it is, he is right, because she likes the nerves, craves the thrill that runs through her blood when she does something dangerous, and sticks the landing. High risk, high reward, and this— Gilbert’s hands pinning her to the wall, his hips slotted over hers, she can’t move, and  _ she likes it _ — is exactly what she needs.

“Gilbert,” she says, because he has not answered— God, why hasn’t he answered? She  _ needs  _ him to, needs him to answer and follow through, needs  _ him _ — and, frankly, it is scaring the shit out of her. “Tell me.” 

His lips brush against her ear when he talks. “You have to tell me if you’re uncomfortable.” 

“I know,” she says, and nods, “I will.”

“I’m going to get you off with my fingers, first, then I’m going to fuck you— against the wall,” his voice is low, gravelly, exactly the kind of tone that she likes, the kind that turns her on and makes her legs shake.

“Then  _ do it _ already,” Anne says, demand thick in her voice, and she knows he can hear her, because he stills. 

“Beg.” 

Her stomach gathers sparks. 

“What?” she asks, because,  _ God,  _ he is pushing all of her buttons, and he should not be capable of this. 

“Beg,” he repeats, lips against her throat, “beg me to touch you.” 

“Please,” Anne says, because she wants to start small— and she knows, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it will spur Gilbert on even further, “please touch me, I-I need you to touch me.” 

He unbuttons her jeans, slipping his hands into her pants— he is easing them down her thighs pressing the pads of his fingers into her skin, like individual licks of flame— when he says, “you can do better than that.” 

Her stomach flips, and the words bubble up in her throat. “Please, Gilbert, I need you to touch me— I need your fingers, I need you to get me off, please, please.” 

He slips two fingers into her, pressing the heel of his palm onto her clit. It’s good, so good, too good for something so simple, and instantly, she craves more; she pushes into him, into his hand, throwing her head back and ignoring the ache of her collision with the wall. 

Anne is beginning to realize that Gilbert does everything slowly, because the speed of his fingers is so slow, it feels to her like time is moving in reverse, winding backwards. It’s killing her, and the hand that is not pleasuring her is pinning her hips to the wall, so she can’t grind down against him.

“You’re going to have to tell me what you want,” Gilbert says— orders really— and she shouldn’t like it as much as she does, should not crave the feeling it makes spiral through her stomach. 

“F-faster, please,” she asks, and he listens, crooking his fingers as he thrusts them. Her legs are shaking, she’s  _ embarrassingly  _ close, even despite the few calculated touches. 

“You,” he whispers, and Anne is certain he is going to make her beg for it, beg to come, but he surprises her, “are so fucking beautiful.” 

“What?” she asks, because she is sure that she imagined it. 

“You’re beautiful,” he repeats, and presses his thumb against her clit. Her eyes shoot open, and she finally—  _ finally _ , for the first time since he has pushed her against the wall— looks him in the eye. 

He is looking at her like his eyes could set fires.

His pupils are blown wide, and it would almost upset her if it wasn’t so beautiful. She loves the colour of his eyes, like the colour of the bark on the cherry tree outside her bedroom window at home. She misses that, the spark of it, when she looks at him now, but then he twists his fingers, angling them perfectly, and she is coming. 

Her body always locks up, right before, and she sucks in a breath that is exhaled as a moan when her joints release. Her legs shake, calves tensing up, and she knows she is going to have to work a cramp out of them after she comes down.

He is good at this, criminally good, with calluses and a cocky attitude that sets her on edge, immediately, and fingers that get her there quickly. And his mouth, God, his mouth, she wants it everywhere.

He works her through it, rubbing circles on her hip and moving his fingers slowly, kissing heated, hurried lips on her jaw, and her skin is electrified, alive, like an electric fence or a bug zapper. 

She half expects Gilbert to be burned once this is over.

He makes a noise deep in his chest when her nails rake down his back, and for a second, she thinks she has hurt him, but then he is kissing her neck and whispering, “fuck, that’s hot.”

“You’re a fucking masochist, huh?” she asks, and her sentence is ended on a light gasp when he pulls his fingers from her gently. 

“Don’t like to put a label on it.” He wipes his hand on the front of his jeans then reaches around to his back pocket, flicking his wallet open with one hand and— fuck, that's something new for her, Gilbert’s hands, the way they move and the fact that his skin is darker over his knuckles than on the rest of his fingers and  _ God,  _ she wants him— pulls a condom from the same slot where he keeps his cash. 

Anne is tempted to make a joke, but whatever she saw in his eyes as he pinned her to the wall and got her off with his fingers is still there, and she does not want to change the dynamic that they have built. 

Everything moves fast, and there is a moment between Gilbert putting on the condom and easing into her where he traces a hand down the side of her face and whispers, “I want to know everything about you.” 

She leans her head into his shoulder, peppering kisses onto his skin, and lets him lift her up. She wraps her legs around his waist, and says into his skin, “let me tell you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading i love you all so much please feel free to visit me on tumblr @logynnrose (i dont know how to embed links). leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoy because they keep me alive and make my cats respect me!


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